->''If video games got drunk and had one-night stands that resulted in pregnancy, Painkiller would be the product of the frenzied, S&M-laden coupling of {{VideoGame/Doom}} and VideoGame/SeriousSam.''-->-- '''Steerpike''' of ''[[http://tap-repeatedly.com/2003/02/painkiller-review/ Four Fat Chicks]]''.

''Painkiller'' is a FPS made by Polish developers People Can Fly. The game concerns Daniel Garner, a man with an idyllic life, a beautiful spouse, and whose life is tragically snipped short when a truck plows straight into his car. Daniel gets to watch as his wife goes to Heaven, but he has to stay in Purgatory where he is commissioned by God to stop Lucifer's invasion. If Lucifer takes Purgatory, he can take Earth and Heaven as well. Oh, and Eve is your companion through the game. Yeah, [[AdamAndEvePlot that Eve.]]

The story is utterly auxiliary, though it lends itself to interesting interpretations. Either way, you can skip all the cutscenes and hop right into the game with no ill consequence. The game strings together massive battle after massive battle, tossing a bunch of novel guns into your inventory and setting you free in the Demon Preservation Hunting Grounds in the middle of Demon Hunting season.

The boss battles are massive, the challenges the game sets are worth it (in the form of powerups you can earn), the enemies are varied and awesome (Nazi zombies whose war cry is "SCHEISSE!"), it's got hours of replay value, and it costs something like $10. In short, it's a fantastic example of old-school FPS game design with new-school sensibilities.

In addition to that, it was notable for being one of the most impressive looking shooters of the time, still holding up graphically even after decade of its initial release. The main reason for this is an amazing level design - aside of RuleOfCool, the game basically ''runs'' on SceneryPorn, consisting almost exclusively of enormous and meticulously detailed levels (in contrast to claustrophobic and linear stages of many first person shooters of the 2000s).

For a while, ''Painkiller'' owned the unique distinction of being '''THE MOST METAL GAME EVER''', finally being overtaken by ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'', which was then overtaken by ''VideoGame/Doom2016''.

Apart from the original game, People Can Fly also developed an expansion pack, ''Battle out of Hell'', made up mostly of [[WhatCouldHaveBeen content that was]] DummiedOut or otherwise scrapped for the original game. It shows, as most players consider the expansion to be a bit of a mixed bag that doesn't quite reach the level of the original game. Since then, the game's publishers have released other standalone expansions developed by fan modders, starting with ''Painkiller: Overdose'' in 2007 (developed by Mindware Studios from the Czech Republic), and following up with ''Painkiller: Resurrection'' in 2009 (by Homegrown Games) and ''Painkiller: Redemption'' in 2011 (by [=Team EggTooth=]). [[RunningTheAsylum Par for the course, none of them are particularly good.]]

A modern [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of the game, titled ''Painkiller: Hell & Damnation'', was released on October 31, 2012 on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. It was developed by The Farm 51, the makers of ''VideoGame/NecroVisioN'' and ''VideoGame/{{Dreamkiller}}'', who were themselves heavily inspired by the original ''Painkiller''. The game is basically a "greatest hits" of the best levels from ''Painkiller'' and ''Battle Out of Hell'', with a new engine and modern graphics, new weapons, and a new original story attached (Daniel is fighting to collect an army of 7,000 souls for Death, in exchange for being reunited with his wife Catherine). Noteably, Daniel is now voiced by Jon St. John, the voice of VideoGame/DukeNukem.

Not in any way related to [[Series/PainkillerJane a series of media featuring virtually immortal, ass-kicking Action Girls.]] Or Music/JudasPriest. Though being related to Music/JudasPriest would be the one and only way to make the game any more metal than it already is.

----!!This game provides examples of:

* AbnormalAmmo - Roughly every single weapon has you firing something that could arch a few eyebrows. Demon fetuses, stakes, the screams of a severed demon head, [[MemeticMutation shuriken and]] [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation lightning]]...* AirborneAircraftCarrier - The "Air Combat" level from Overdose takes place on one such vessel in what appears to be an alternate version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.* AlienBlood - ''Overdose'' introduced enemies with green and even purple-colored blood.* AllJustADream - The ending to ''Painkiller: Hell & Damnation'' seems to imply Daniel never died, but was really in a coma the entire series. However, the supernatural events in Purgatory all really happened, it just happens that Daniel was alive all along the whole time.* ArrowsOnFire - Ammo from the Stakegun will catch fire if it flies far enough. It can also be lit on fire if the stake hits a Stakegun grenade in mid-air, turning it into a rocket.** The arrows fired by the Templar enemies in the Oriental Castle and Babel levels also follow this rule.* AtTheOperaTonight - Mr. Garner's idea of a fine opera performance includes samurai, ninja, and beetle-things lunging off the stage and trying to kill him. To which he replies by promptly blowing their heads off.* AscendedMeme - All of the weapons in ''Resurrection'' have a slightly grungier redesign to them, but if you were to look closely at the new design on the Electro Driver, you'd be able to notice small graphics of fire and a topless woman. A likely nod [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation to a particular famous quote said by a certain critic]]. The redesigned version is not present in the later ''Redemption'' and ''Recurring Evil'' expansions, however.* AwesomeButImpractical- Yes, you can shoot a stake through a grenade to make a long-range grenade. Yes, it's awesome when you get it working. No, it doesn't have any real combat application.** For giggles the developers made it possible to do the same thing between the bolts and the scatter bombs of the semi-auto sniper weapon in ''Battle out of Hell'', but due to the high speed of the bombs and the long reload before using the bolts, its incredibly pointless and nearly impossible to use it effectively.** Not so much in multiplayer in the case of the stake gun, where a staked grenade's faster projectile speed makes it an extremely useful spawnkilling weapon in the hands of a skilled player. Still useless in direct combat, though, due to the stake gun's low rate of fire.* BagOfSpilling: Health, armor, and ammo are all reset at the beginning of each new level. This seems to be done to avert TooAwesomeToUse, giving you absolutely no reason to hold back during the firefights.* BarredFromTheAfterlife: The basis is that the main character has died, but cannot enter Heaven with his wife until he does some work for the angels and kill the generals of Hell. ** The ending of ''Hell & Damnation'' presents an alternate explanation for this: Daniel never died in the first place, he was simply in a coma the entire time in the real world, which explains why he's stuck wandering Purgatory instead of being able to settle in Heaven, deceived by everyone he's come across.* TheBattleDidntCount - [[spoiler: Lucifer's general Alastor appears at the end of the game to mock you after you kill Lucifer himself in the "bad" ending. It seems [[FightingAShadow killing Alastor in Purgatory just sends him back to hell.]] Whoops.]]* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame - See A Taste of Power* BodyHorror - The flying enemies in the Dead City level of ''Battle out of Hell'' and Dead Marsh level of ''Overdose'' are the up-turned remains of a human corpse's upper-half with dragonfly-like wings sprouting from the rib-cage.* BolivianArmyEnding - One of the possible endings of the first game. [[spoiler:The canonical one. The opening to the expansion picks up from there and shows Daniel's escape.]]* BulletTime - The Haste, Double Haste and Triple Haste cards, which can [[GameBreaker make any encounter a breeze]] when combined with certain other cards.* CableCarActionSequence: Subverted in the "Snowy Bridge" level of ''Painkiller''. Daniel takes a wobbly gondola from one part of the level to another in peace, a nice change from the long level full of tough samurai and slippery ninjas.* CameraAbuse - Beginning with ''Overdose'' it was possible to have blood splatter on the screen when dissecting a baddie up close, including enemies that had AlienBlood.* CircusOfFear - One of the levels in ''Battle Out of Hell''.* CityOfCanals - City on the Water.* ClownCarGrave - Explicitly stated to be portals used by demons, so {{justified|Trope}}.* CollectionSidequest - To get 100% on all levels (and some of the cards), you need to find well hidden gold and treasures.* ContinuityReboot - ''Hell & Damnation'' clearly seems to ignore all of the third-party games ([[spoiler: although Belial appears at the end and claims to be the new protagonist]]), but it's ambiguous as to whether it's the same continuity as the original ''Painkiller'' and ''Battle Out of Hell''. Daniel is extremely untrustworthy of Death, initially rebuffing his offer with 'I've heard that before', mentions battling the devil, and being cheated by Heaven out of their side of the bargain. Eve's betrayal is also mentioned, although for some reason she doesn't have any Queen of Hell powers and is sincerely trying to help Daniel. Overall, it seems to take the events of the first 2 games as having happened in BroadStrokes, or at the very least, the remake seems to be a HereWeGoAgain.* CopyAndPasteEnvironments - The aforementioned CircusOfFear in ''Battle Out of Hell'' was pretty much copied shamelessly in ''Overdose'', aside from a few different enemies and a different final section.** Not to mention the guns, four of which are direct copies of weapons from ''Painkiller'' and ''Battle Out Of Hell'' with a reskin and a {{Nerf}} to boot.** And on that note, ''Redemption'' is made up ''entirely'' of multiplayer levels from ''Painkiller'', populated with monsters.* CrateExpectations - There are crates found here-there. Might be justified in a factory level of the first game which has pallets.* CreatorCameo: In the Military Base level in ''Painkiller'', there are large shipping containers label for a Polish company called "People Can [[IncrediblyLamePun Fry]]". * CreepyCathedral - Several levels.* [[Awesome/VideoGameLevels Crowning Level of Awesome]] - The game has tons of great levels, ranging from the atmospheric ''Asylum'' level to the gorgeous ''City on Water'', but the stage for the final BossBattle is generally agreed upon to be one of the greatest levels in the game, if not one of the greatest levels ever made for any FPS. See HellIsWar below. [[spoiler:Too bad the fight itself is [[AnticlimaxBoss stupidly easy and short]])]].** The Leningrad level in ''Battle Out of Hell'' deserves a special mention, taking place in the titular city in the World War II-era, complete with you being stuck in the middle of a war between Nazi Zombies and a demonic Russian military. The music that plays during every fight sequence? [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGx3ms3a-k&feature=related The Soviet national anthem, complete with wails of the damned in the background.]]* DarkerAndEdgier - Painkiller could be considered the darker counterpart of ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'', which also imitated the old-skool [[TheWarSequence War Sequence]]-spamming FPS style and came earlier.* DeadToBeginWith - Well, Dead Because Of Opening Cutscene.* DeliberatelyMonochrome - The demon morph makes Daniel see in black and white, with enemies tinted black and red.* DegradedBoss - The miniboss from the first level of ''Painkiller''. See below.* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Just in case you missed the intro, Belial will be sure to remind you. Every 15 seconds or so.* DoesNotLikeShoes - Eve is always barefoot.* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu - The final boss is Lucifer himself.* DieChairDie: It's even the objective in one of the levels of the first game.* EasyModeMockery - The lower your difficulty choice, the fewer levels you can access. Curiously, if you play on the highest difficulty rating then the entire final chapter is locked out.* EleventhHourSuperpower - In Redemption, on the last level of chapter 1, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysontheTin Entrance]], which is [[spoiler: the entrance to the current BigBad's lair.]] It's loaded with monsters guarding, well, the [[CaptainObvious Entrance,]] and odds are stacked against Daniel. [[BaitAndSwitch Or they would be,]] if it weren't for the fact that he has [[NumberOftheBeast 666]] [[NighInvulnerable health,]] and [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic 666 ammo]] for [[MoreDakka EVERY]] [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter SINGLE]] [[AnIcePerson GODDAMN]] [[LightningGun WEAPON]] [[StockNinjaWeaponry IN]] [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice HIS]] [[GrenadeLauncher ARSENAL.]] Yes, that includes the [[LudicrousGibs Rocket launcher.]] There's a boss at the end which is a [[EldritchAbomination huge demon.]] [[spoiler: [[CurbStompBattle And he doesn't have a chance in hell]] of [[CrowningMomentofAwesome beating]] [[OneManArmy Daniel.]]]]* EmergencyWeapon - The titular Painkiller actually remains a useful weapon for the rest of the game.* EverythingFades - Including dropped souls and gold, if you aren't fast enough.* ExcusePlot - You're dead, and God has decided to make you His errand boy by holding your wife over your head. Go kill everything.* FaceHeelTurn - [[spoiler: The end of ''Battle Out of Hell'' reveals Eve's ultimate goal was to steal the power of the Ruler of the Underworld to become Queen of Hell.]]** FaceHeelRevolvingDoor - In ''Hell & Damnation'' she's repentant for her power-crazed lunatic phase and once again a sincere ally of Daniel's; the reason for this is not explained at all.* FanDisservice: The 'nurse' enemies are a parody of the sexy nurse concept, complete with bad breast augmentation and waxy faces.* FinalExamFinale - A very clever variation. In the second to last level in ''Overdose'', the Movie Studios, you go through the "stages" and "actors" of each previous level. Along with ''cardboard cut-out monsters''!* FireAndBrimstoneHell - Averted. Instead Hell consists of [[spoiler: a collection of man-made disasters and wars frozen in motion.]]** But then played straight again in one of the ending videos [[spoiler:after you kill Lucifer and Alastor gloats before leaving you to your BolivianArmyEnding]].* FreezeRay - Secondary fire of the Shotgun (Or "Bonegun", in ''Overdose'').* FunWithAcronyms: ''Painkiller: '''H'''ell and '''D'''amnation''* GagDub - by [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]], of the game's intro sequence, which can be seen as a post-credits addon in his review of ''TheWitcher''* GameBreakingBug: The game has an annoying habit of corrupting save files.* GameplayAndStorySegregation - What happens in the intro and in between cutscenes, has little to do in the game. At least in first installment.* GasMaskMooks - Skeleton soldiers.* GatlingGood - With an attached rocket launcher nonetheless.** Some of the Biker enemies in the Prison chapter will carry their own gatling. They move slowly take a while to charge up their weapon, but they certainly look like they enjoy using such heavy ordnance. * GenreThrowback - The game is unapologetically hailing to older [=FPSes=], with the only tactical decisions being "unload" and "charge".* GodivaHair - [[MsFanservice Eve]] wears only this and a cloth wrap around her hips. In some shots her nipples are actually clearly visible underneath. In ''Battle Out of Hell'' she gets a little more cover.* GoldenEnding: Finishing the original game on Trauma gives you an ending where [[spoiler:Daniel is reunited with his wife, per his agreement with Heaven]]. In contrast to most examples of this trope, it's not the canon ending.* GottaCatchEmAll - Most, if not all of the card conditions basically boil down to this: Find all the monsters and kill them, find all the secrets, catch a certain number of souls and demon morph a certain number of times, etc. Some of them can be really [[FakeDifficulty dickish]] to get too.* GrapplingHookPistol - The titular weapon, sort of. Secondary fire latches onto the environment with a hook... but then just projects a laser beam back to the base if you face it, slowly vaporizing anything caught in it. Enemies can find themselves taking first-class flight on a direct hit with the hook.* GratuitousJapanese - Par for the course with demonic ninjas, but the things they yell out ("''watashi wa karasu!!!''"/"I am a crow!!!") kinda border on nonsense.** Unless you happen to know that tengu in Japanese mythology were essentially demonic crow ninjas, then it makes slightly more sense.* GuideDangIt - How many of those secrets will an "average" gamer find without a walkthrough?** A couple of gamers were this stumped on the Vampire miniboss in the catacombs level. [[spoiler: Shoot the ceiling and shine light on him.]]** Even worse is the Ghost Nun miniboss of the Orphanage in 'Battle Out Of Hell'. Completely immune to the fire of all your weapons, including the new submachine gun/flamethrower combi-weapon you picked up in her room, there's only one way of damaging her. [[spoiler:Use the flamethrower to set alight a patch of floor near the door that looks exactly like the rest of the room except for a tree root growing on it just as she crosses it. The flames will set her alight and kill her, [[ViolationOfCommonSense despite the flamethrower itself having absolutely NO effect on her]].]]* GunsAreWorthless - Not for you ([[NoKillLikeOverkill thankfully]]), but for the enemies. If you have armor on, you barely even take ScratchDamage on most difficulties ([[DeathOfAThousandCuts it adds up fast, though]]). Then we have the bikers in the first Painkiller: they wield Tommy Guns in level 5-1 and [[NailEm nail guns]] in 5-2, and [[GoddamnBats the nails do MUCH more damage]].* HarderThanHard - two hidden difficulty levels (Nightmare and Trauma)* {{Hell}} - The last level of the original; The earlier ones are actually Purgatory.* HellIsWar - Literally. The final area of the game takes place in {{Hell}}, which to the hero's human eyes looks like a time-frozen collection of historic war scenarios with the humans cut out, complete with an unmanned battering ram breaking through crumbling castle walls, grenades exploding in trenches, a crashing airplane and, looming in the distance, a giant mushroom cloud forming over an exploding atomic bomb.* HereWeGoAgain - ''Hell and Damnation'' is a loop of the first two games, due to Death making a deal to go collect souls for him so he can really return him to his wife. [[spoiler:Surprise surprise, in the end, he's been deceived and Eve tells him he has to go fight yet more legions against a deathless enemy (Death himself, in this case, not Alastor)]].* HighlyVisibleNinja - If they're not using projectile attacks, then they're about four inches from your nose trying to kill you. And they repeatedly yell gibberish in Japanese.* HoistByHisOwnPetard - [[spoiler: How Daniel defeats Lucifer.]]* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels - Daydream is easy, Insomnia is normal, Nightmare is hard, and Trauma is NintendoHard.* ImpossiblyCoolWeapon - Just about every single one of them.* ImprobableWeaponUser - One of the weapons in ''Overdose'' you get to use is a '''severed demon head'''. Another are demon fetuses.* InexplicableTreasureChests* JumpPhysics: Daniel can move a lot quicker by bunny-hopping everywhere and seeing how the gameplay is "kill everyone and not die" you are going to need to do this. ''Painkiller: Hell & Damnation'' has this info a loading screen tip.* LeapOfFaith - Frakking secret areas. Especially bad in the Stone Pit, which is a massive level consisting of plenty of secrets hidden above a, well, giant pit.* LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition - Both subverted and played straight.* LiterallyShatteredLives - You can freeze and shatter enemies. This is the best way of dealing with some GoddamnedBats.* LiteraryAllusionTitle - [[Music/JudasPriest He is the Painkiller,]] and [[ThisIsMyBoomstick this is the Painkiller]].* LuckBasedMission - At least one card condition in ''Overdose'' relies on pure, dumb luck: the level ''Animal Farm'' requires the player to collect 160 souls to collect the card. However, there are only 161 enemies (the last one is glitched out) in the entire level, so the player can only miss a single soul at most - which is already incredibly challenging, but becomes luck-based because some souls can spawn out of reach, and the card condition becomes {{Unwinnable}} if this happens even twice.* LudicrousGibs - The Painkiller shreds enemies into a fine paste, and that's just the beginning.* {{Malaproper}} - Daniel somehow pronounces Alastor's name as ''Allister''. He and Eve also pronounce Sammael's name as ''Samale'' (''Belial however says him by the right pronunciation'')* MeaningfulName - Asmodeus is a demon hiding out in Purgatory to avoid having to fight for Hell. In Christian demonology, Asmodeus is a "Great King" of demons who, according to some legends, was the serpent in Eden. His name may have been derived from a dangerous spirit of Zoroastrian myth called Aeshma-deva, or "the Destroyer." Asmodeus was also one of the demons Solomon used in building his temple. Given this pedigree, finding out he's a dumpy little nobody demon hiding from Hell seems about as inappropriate a name choice as possible. [[spoiler:He's Lucifer in disguise, who's also the most commonly-named candidate for the serpent in Eden. And that bit of history as an architect? He's the one building the gates from Hell to Purgatory.]]* MixAndMatchWeapons: A lot off the weapons in the series are this. ''Painkiller'' has a chaingun that's also a rocket launcher, the electro-driver shoots ninja stars and a lighting bolt and can combine both into a chain lightning attack. The titular weapon has ''four different attacks'': it spins, launches the head, creates a laser, and slowly luanches the spinning blades. * MoneyMultiplier: The Greed Black Tarot, which which doubles the amount of gold found in breakable items.* MonsterClown - In the CircusOfFear, natch.* MoodWhiplash - The Asylum and Orphanage levels are genuinely horrifying. Especially the Asylum pre-patch, when there is no battle music at all to pump you up. Both of them come RIGHT at the time you're considering yourself utterly badass.* MsFanservice - The game's portrayal of Eve makes one contemplate all manner of original sin.* MultipleEndings - There's three in the original game.** A bad ending: [[spoiler: You are trapped in Hell, fighting off an infinite wave of enemies with just your Manly Boots and shotgun.]]** The second bad ending: [[spoiler: You've completed the game at 100%. The ending is the bosses running towards the camera in washed-out, bright white light. That's it.]]** [[spoiler:Completing the game at 100%, then the [[HarderThanHard first hidden difficulty]] at 100%, and then the [[NintendoHard second hidden difficulty]] gives you the good ending, which shows Daniel and his wife slowly walking together and holding hands. And the ending isn't canon anyway.]]* MysteriousPast - Played with. In the first game is frequently mentioned that something presumably evil in the past of Daniel prevents him from enter Heaven, even tho Daniel swears there's no such thing as he was a completely upright man. [[spoiler: In Hell & Damnation, however, while remembering his mortal life in the intro, Daniel is presented with some glimpses that hints at a violent past in the military...but in the ending we learn that Daniel could not enter Heaven because he was infact not really dead, just in a coma, and so he was never actually judged for his life to begin with. So, whatever there is really something bad or not in Daniel's past, is ultimately still to be clarified]].* NighInvulnerability - Part of the Demon Morph powers.* NinjaPirateZombieRobot - Numerous nouns become descriptive adjectives transfixed before "demon", such as "pirate demon", "prisoner demon", or "biker demon". The amount of variety in Hell is absolutely staggering.* NoAnimalsWereHarmed - [[InvertedTrope "Several demons were actually harmed during the production of Painkiller."]]* NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom: It actually worked in the first game's favor as Yahtzee points out. The only "objectives" are optional chances to get power-ups to use later. Painkiller: Resurrection tried to get away from this. ''Tried.''* NumberOfTheBeast: The 666 Ammo card, obviously. However, the number on the card is written in Roman numerals (DCLXVI), which shows that the devs knew the ''value'' is important, not three sixes.* NunsAreSpooky - Demon zombie nuns show up in the Orphanage level.* ObfuscatingStupidity - Daniel's easy-going Imp friend that follows him around for most of the game turns out to be [[spoiler: Lucifer himself in disguise, busy digging holes to open portals between Purgatory and Hell]].* ObviousBeta - ''Resurrection'', through and through.* OneHitKill - Part of the demon morph's powers, except against bosses.** One of the cards, when activated, gives every single enemy 1 HP.* OneManArmy* PacifistRun - Sort of; the Tarot Card challenge of ''Battle Out Of Hell'''s second level, Looney Park, is "Kill no more than 88 enemies". The first 67 kills are mandatory, so the Pacifism part only comes into play during the rail shooter section in the second half.** Doubles as a LuckBasedMission: the roller-coaster automatically running over 18 enemies and the other enemies accidentally killing each other can ''very'' easily push your kill count over 88.* PowerupLetdown - Many tarot cards. While most cards are not entirely useless and even fun to use, the letdown comes from the difficult process of obtaining them. The new cards from ''Battle Out of Hell'' take it a step farther with how expensive it is to purchase them.** The few new cards introduced in ''Overdose'' on the other hand are completely useless and not worth looking at. ''Resurrection'' takes it the furthest in that there are only six cards to obtain in the entire game and only one gold and one silver card can be used at a time as opposed to the two silver and three card holding of previous games. Add this to the fact that Resurrection's levels are far longer and long and easy to fail, its best to just completely ignore the tarot cards in that game outright.* PuzzleBoss - It's easier to name those who are NOT: Necrogiant, Alastor, and Cerberus.* QuadDamage - Via the Black Tarot. There's also a skull item which alters weapons so that some of their weaknesses are removed.** In Painkiller's multiplier there's an actual Quad Damage item to be found. It can also be found on the first level of ''Redemption''.* RewardingVandalism - Most of the objects, when destroyed, release coins for some strange reason.* RuleOfCool - The game's reason for existing.* SceneryPorn - Seriously, just play through it and you'll understand. Some of the jaw-dropping settings include a cathedral, a fancy opera house, a castle, a Turkish-style palace, a Venice-like city on the water, a modern dockyard with towering cranes, a hilltop monastery, and an absolutely vertigo-inducing snowy bridge level. Also, some locations doesn't have any mooks or useful objects in it - they were just made for scenery porn.* SecondaryFire, of course! Some even have Tertiary Fire.* SequelDifficultySpike: ''Painkiller: Hell & Damnation'' is noticeably harder than the original game, especially the earlier levels. There are even more enemies, and the earlier levels now contain EliteMooks instead of simply waves of cannon fodder.* ShockAndAwe - Hi, Electrodriver.* SimulatedUrbanCombatArea - The architecture is amazingly realistic in more than several of the urban levels.* [[SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset Skeletons In The Gun Closet]]: The Bonegun and the Spinegun from ''Overdose'' are made entirely out of bones.* SpiritualSuccessor - To old arcade shoot 'em ups, and VideoGame/QuakeI, in terms of random locations being mashed together to form a bare-bones FPS. The game has also spawned its own set of spiritual successors: ''NecroVision'', developed by The Farm 51 whose team includes former People Can Fly designers, and ''VideoGame/{{Dreamkiller}}'', an original shooter from the developers of ''Overdose''. Most eployees of People Can Fly are currently in the employ of EpicGames, who ended up working on ''VideoGame/{{Bulletstorm}}''. The rest of them founded Flying Wild Hog, who made ''VideoGame/HardReset'' and [[VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2013 the recent Shadow Warrior]].* StandardFPSGuns - Averted. There are five guns, each with an alternate fire. The Painkiller, a weedwhacker/grappler/beamgun. The shotgun that also shoots freezing ice bolts. The Stakegun, that fires yard-long bolts of wood and grenades. And the Electrodriver, which shoots shurikens and lightning. The only gun that can be considered "standard" is the rocket launcher/minigun. The expansion adds a machine gun/flamethrower and a sniper rifle/flechette mini-bomb launcher.** Not only does Electrodriver shoot shurikens and lightning, but it can also shoot shurikens which shoot lightning themselves.** Also The Painkiller can shoot its blade out at an enemy, go through multiple enemies, and return to the user. It does a decent amount of damage if you are willing to wait for it to return to you.** ''Overdose'' features several weapons that lifted directly from the original game, reskinned, and usually nerfed. However, its original weapons are... interesting. Most notably, a radioactive waste spewing wheel-lock pistol/flamethrower* StandardSciFiSetting - In ''Overdose'', the Asteroids level pretty much happily channels typical sci-fi.* StandardStatusEffects - Some enemies can make the character slower, poison him or make unable to fire weapons.* TheStarscream - [[spoiler: Turns out Alastor's not really that upset you killed Lucifer. In fact, he was on his way to kill the old man himself for being such a boneheaded leader. Also Eve, who only wanted you to kill Alastor to take his powers and become the Ruler of Hell.]]* StockScream - In Asylum and Hell stages, many of them can be heard in the background. Wilhelm and Howie screams are not included.* SuperDrowningSkills: Submerging in some of the levels is instantly fatal.* SuperMode - If you collect enough enemy souls, you'll become a demon until you run out. A very, very powerful demon, at that. A demon who kills enemies just by looking at them, lighting them on fire and [[MindRape Mind Crushing]] them.* SurpriseCarCrash: The opening cinematic has protagonist Daniel Garner and his wife Catherine driving out for a birthday date. Daniel takes his eyes off the road for a split-second to hold hands with her and a truck crosses the center line and kills both of them in a head-on collision.* SwissArmyWeapon - See above. The expansion ''Overdose'' also adds some newer, even stranger weapons.* TakeThat: A print ad for ''Hell Wars'' read "Hang up your Franchise/{{Halo}}. Get ready for Hell."** There's also a subtle jab at ''VideoGame/{{Doom}} 3'' in the opening cinematic of Battle Out of Hell. Eve tells Daniel that "nobody wants to teleport into Hell."* UndergroundMonkey - Surprisingly averted. For the first 2/3rds of the game, each new level features a new set of enemy types, with their own unique models and behavior. The last several levels do tend to use repeating enemy types, but even then there's some degree of variety.* UrbanFantasy - There's just as many modern-day levels as there are ancient levels.* TheWarSequence - The original ''Painkiller'' might already have counted, but nearly every single encounter in ''Redemption'' plays out like this: Every single level has close to a ''thousand'' monsters, with as many as ''a hundred'' for individual encounters.* WhamLine - [[spoiler:"I dig graves."]] As an explanation, [[spoiler:the completely unnecessary graveyards in Purgatory are used to hide gates from Hell. Asmodeus has just revealed himself as Lucifer, preparing the way for Hell's armies all this time]].* WithThisHerring - Lampshaded and averted; the angel who gives Daniel the quest offers to give him weapons, but he declines. The starting weapon, the titular Painkiller, is strong enough that you can win the game using nothing else fairly easily.* WreakingHavok - ''Painkiller'' was one of the first high-profile games to use Havok physics, but unlike some of its more [[VideoGame/HalfLife popular]] [[Franchise/{{Halo}} contemporaries]], ''Painkiller'' focused more on [[RagdollPhysics enemy corpses flying through the air propelled by shotgun blasts]] and giant bosses whose footsteps make arcways collapse brick-by-brick.* {{Wutai}} - ''Japanese Massacre'', The second level of ''Overdose''. To a lesser extent, demon samurai and ninja are prominent in Episode 2 of the original game, trying to kill you in a European Opera house and a Russian army bridge.* ZombieApocalypse - The Village level is a medieval one.** The Dead City level in Battle Out of Hell is a literal one, and almost more intense than ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'', particularly if you're trying to beat the level under 20 minutes to get the Tarot card.----